Movie notes: ‘G.I. Joe’ goes AWOL until 2013

Here’s something you don’t see every day — a big-budget, summer blockbuster fleeing the scene barely a month before opening.

But that’s what happened yesterday, when Paramount Pictures announced that “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” is marching away from its June 29 release date. And this isn’t a small move — it’s being pushed all the way back to March 29, according to Boston.com.

The reason being cited is the studio wants to convert the second film in the noisy would-be franchise to 3-D. The backstory may well be that they’re worried about “Retaliation’s” box-office prospects, given the disappointing performance last weekend of “Battleship,” another action flick based on a Hasbro product.

This rarely happens, because big summer movies — especially what appears to be an established franchise like “G.I. Joe” — behave like 900-pound gorillas. They stake out dates a year or more in advance to scare off the competition, then set their PR and product-tie-in machines to work.

This move, then, is a head-scratcher for a couple of reasons:

1. June 29 looked like a prime date — six days before the Fourth of July, and with no action-film competition (the other films opening that day are the comedies “Ted” and “Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection,” the comedy/drama “Magic Mike” and the drama “People Like Us”).

2. The original film, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” was a summer movie. It opened Aug. 7, 2009, and became a late-summer hit, making $150 million.

Of course, thanks to the performance of “The Hunger Games” and “Alice in Wonderland,” March is beginning to look like an attractive option for homeless summer movies.

And there is the tiny little factor of “The Amazing Spider-Man” opening on July 2 — four days after “Retaliation’s” original date. But BoxOfficeMojo analyst Ray Subers thought that (and sequel fatigue) would be canceled out by the fact that “Retaliation” features a who’s-who of action movie stars old (Bruce Willis) and new (The Rock, Channing Tatum). He predicted the sequel would outgross the original despite the looming presence of the web-slinger’s prequel.